Inspirational Media ArticlesExcerpts of Key Inspirational Media Articles in Major Media
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A garage in an Auckland suburb is an unlikely laboratory for a 57-year-old millionaire with a passion to change the world. But Ray Avery is anything but typical. A charismatic Kiwi ... he's taken a horrific childhood, combined it with a passion and prodigious aptitude for science and turned it into a motivation to change the world. Ray now runs Medicine Mondiale, a non-profit aid organisation dedicated to doing things differently. Medicine Mondiale is based from his home ... and his garage has been converted into high tech lab. Here Ray works designing and developing simple and sustainable medical solutions for the many health problems in the developing world. He enlists the help of other scientists and experts to work on specific projects with him. Ray dragged himself up by the bootstraps, from a childhood in orphanages and on the streets of London, to become a scientist, businessman and self-made millionaire. After coming to New Zealand, a chance meeting with Fred Hollows (world renowned eye surgeon) set him on a path to Eritrea and Nepal to build lens factories for the Fred Hollows Foundation. Exposure to the raw and real shortcomings of heath care in these regions made him determined to use his knowledge of pharmaceuticals, science, project management, design and development to tackle the issues at a very practical level.
The lesson began with the striking of a Tibetan singing bowl to induce mindful awareness. With the sound of their new school bell, the fifth graders at Piedmont Avenue Elementary School here closed their eyes and focused on their breathing, as they tried to imagine “loving kindness” on the playground. “I was losing at baseball and I was about to throw a bat,” Alex Menton, 11, reported to his classmates the next day. “The mindfulness really helped.” Students at dozens of schools across the country are trying hard to be in the present moment. This is what is known as mindfulness training, in which stress-reducing techniques ... are wedged between reading and spelling tests. Mindfulness, while common in hospitals, corporations, professional sports and even prisons, is relatively new in the education of squirming children. But a small but growing number of schools in places like Oakland and Lancaster, Pa., are slowly embracing the concept ... and institutions, like the psychology department at Stanford University and the Mindfulness Awareness Research Center at the University of California, Los Angeles, are trying to measure the effects. During a five-week pilot program at Piedmont Avenue Elementary, Miss Megan, the “mindful” coach, visited every classroom twice a week, leading 15 minute sessions on how to have “gentle breaths and still bodies.”
Power cables and even batteries might become a thing of the past using a new technique that can transmit power wirelessly. Scientists lit a 60-watt light bulb from a power source 7 feet (2 meters) away with their new technique, with no physical connection between the source and the appliance. The researchers have dubbed their concept "WiTricity," as in "wireless electricity." MIT physicist Marin Soljacic began thinking years ago about how to transmit power wirelessly so his cell phone could recharge without ever being plugged in. Scientists have pursued wireless power transmission for years — notably, eccentric genius Nikola Tesla, who devoted much energy toward it roughly a century ago. Soljacic and his colleagues devised WiTricity based off the notion of resonance. One well-known example of resonance can be seen when an opera singer hits the right note to cause a champagne glass to resonate and shatter. Two objects resonating at the same frequency tend to exchange energy efficiently, while interacting weakly with objects not resonating at the same frequency. Instead of sound, the MIT physicists focused on magnetic fields. Most common materials interact only very weakly with magnetic fields, so little power would get wasted on unintended targets. In their latest work, the scientists designed two copper coils roughly 20 inches (50 centimeters) in diameter that were specially designed to resonate together. One was attached to the power source, the other to a light bulb. The practical demonstration of their earlier theoretical work managed to power the light bulb even when obstacles blocked direct line of sight between the source and device.
Note: For more on Nikola Tesla's amazing inventions from a century ago, and how they were suppressed, click here. For lots of additional information on new energy sources and inventions, click here.
India’s largest automaker is set to start producing the world’s first commercial air-powered vehicle. The Air Car, developed by ex-Formula One engineer Guy Nčgre for Luxembourg-based MDI, uses compressed air, as opposed to the gas-and-oxygen explosions of internal-combustion models, to push its engine’s pistons. Some 6000 zero-emissions Air Cars are scheduled to hit Indian streets in August of 2008. Barring any last-minute design changes on the way to production, the Air Car should be surprisingly practical. The $12,700 CityCAT, one of a handful of planned Air Car models, can hit 68 mph and has a range of 125 miles. It will take only a few minutes for the CityCAT to refuel at gas stations equipped with custom air compressor units; MDI says it should cost around $2 to fill the car’s carbon-fiber tanks with 340 liters of air at 4350 psi. Drivers also will be able to plug into the electrical grid and use the car’s built-in compressor to refill the tanks in about 4 hours. Of course, the Air Car will likely never hit American shores, especially considering its all-glue construction. But that doesn’t mean the major automakers can write it off as a bizarre Indian experiment — MDI has signed deals to bring its design to 12 more countries, including Germany, Israel and South Africa.
Note: For a cornucopia of exciting articles on new automobile designs and energy inventions, click here.
What Ray Anderson calls his “conversion experience” occurred in the summer of 1994, when he was asked to give the sales force at Interface, the carpet tile company he founded, some talking points about the company’s approach to the environment. So he started reading about environmental issues, and thinking about them, until pretty soon it hit him: “I was running a company that was plundering the earth,” he realized. “I thought, ‘Damn, some day people like me will be put in jail!’” He devoted his speech to his newfound vision of polluted air, overflowing landfills, depleted aquifers and used-up resources. Only one institution was powerful enough and pervasive enough to turn these problems around, he told his colleagues, and it was the institution that was causing them in the first place: “Business. Industry. People like us. Us!" He challenged his colleagues to set a deadline for Interface to become a “restorative enterprise,” a sustainable operation that takes nothing out of the earth that cannot be recycled or quickly regenerated, and that does no harm to the biosphere. The deadline they ultimately set is 2020, and the idea has taken hold throughout the company. Mr. Anderson said that through waste reduction, recycling, energy efficiency and other steps, Interface was “about 45 percent from where we were to where we want to be.” Use of fossil fuels is down 45 percent ... he said, while sales are up 49 percent. Globally, the company’s carpet-making uses one-third the water it used to. The company’s worldwide contribution to landfills has been cut by 80 percent. And in the process, Mr. Anderson has turned into perhaps the leading corporate evangelist for sustainability.
Retired TV station owner and broadcast engineer, John Kanzius, wasn't looking for an answer to the energy crisis. He was looking for a cure for cancer. Four years ago, inspiration struck in the middle of the night. Kanzius decided to try using radio waves to kill the cancer cells. His wife Marianne heard the noise and found her husband inventing a radio frequency generator with her pie pans. "I got up immediately, and thought he had lost it." Here are the basics of John's idea: Radio-waves will heat certain metals. Tiny bits of certain metal are injected into a cancer patient. Those nano-particals are attracted to the abnormalities of the cancer cells and ignore the healthy cells. The patient is then exposed to radio waves and only the bad cells heat up and die. But John also came across yet another extrordinary breakthrough. His machine could actually make saltwater burn. John Kanzius discovered that his radio frequency generator could release the oxygen and hydrogen from saltwater and create an incredibly intense flame. "If that was in a car cylinder you could see the amount of fire that would be in the cylinder." The APV Company Laboratory in Akron has checked out John's ... invention. They were amazed. "That could be a steam engine, a steam turbine. That could be a car engine if you wanted it to be." Imagine the possibilities. Saltwater as the ultimate clean fuel. A happy byproduct of one man searching for the cure for cancer.
Note: Though this exciting breakthrough was reported in dozens of local media, not one major news outlet found it worthy of mention. To verify this yourself, click here.
Many respected engineers have been trying for years to bring a compressed air car to market, believing strongly that compressed air can power a viable "zero pollution" car. Now the first commercial compressed air car is on the verge of production and beginning to attract a lot of attention, and with a recently signed partnership with Tata, India's largest automotive manufacturer, the prospects of very cost-effective mass production are now a distinct possibility. The MiniC.A.T is a simple, light urban car. How does it work? 90m3 of compressed air is stored in fibre tanks. The expansion of this air pushes the pistons and creates movement. It is incredibly cost-efficient to run – according to the designers, it costs less than one Euro per 100Km (about a tenth that of a petrol car). Its mileage is about double that of the most advanced electric car (200 to 300 km or 10 hours of driving), a factor which makes a perfect choice in cities where the 80% of motorists drive at less than 60Km. The car has a top speed of 68 mph. Refilling the car will ... take place at adapted petrol stations to administer compressed air. In two or three minutes, and at a cost of approximately [US$2] the car will be ready to go another 200-300 kilometres. As a viable alternative, the car carries a small compressor which can ... refill the tank in 3-4 hours. At the moment, four models have been made: a car, a taxi (5 passengers), a Pick-Up truck and a van. The final selling price will be approximately [US$11,000]. "Moteur Development International" (MDI) ... has researched and developed the Air Car over 10 years.
Note: Why aren't U.S. automakers interested in this breakthrough technology? For abundance of reliable information on the exciting new developments in auto design for super-efficient mileage, click here.
Fifteen years ago, then-Gov. Bill Clinton got him fired from his job as "leader of the free world." But that doesn't seem to bother former President George H.W. Bush too much these days. The political odd couple -- one a gregarious baby boomer, the other a genteel guardian of the greatest generation and both members of the world's most exclusive club of former American presidents -- was on the road again this weekend. They've helped raise more than $1 billion in U.S. aid for tsunami victims and more than $130 million for those devastated by Hurricane Katrina. No matter what the future may hold for either the Bush or Clinton clan, it's clear the friendship struck between two formal rivals is not just for show. "I cannot tell you the selfish pleasure I get out of working with President Clinton," Bush told the near graduates of the University of New Hampshire. "It's a very selfish feeling I have in my heart that we can be out there transcending politics, doing something to help others." Clinton returned the compliment. "Our differences are important; they matter. They make life more interesting and they aid the search for truth," he said, "but our common humanity matters more." President Clinton, who spoke of "seeing" and recognizing ourselves in others, said, "There's nothing beyond the reach of our common endeavor because it's our common endeavor." "You don't have to be a president to be a leader and to touch the lives of your fellow countrymen," former President Bush said.
Mary Risley, a chef, writer and founder of Tante Marie's Cooking School, works to alleviate hunger in the city through the nonprofit organization Food Runners. Founded by Risley in 1997, Food Runners picks up 10 tons a week of food that would otherwise be thrown away and serves more than 350 community organizations, including residential hotels and substance abuse treatment centers. The group has 200 volunteers and a paid driver of a refrigerated truck. Donors include local restaurants, hotels, cafes, caterers, retail markets and wholesalers. In 1997, Risley was honored as cooking teacher of the year by Bon Appétit magazine, but she yearned for more. "Dianne Feinstein was the mayor at the time, and I phoned her office and asked what was being done about hunger. They recommended that I call the San Francisco Food Bank [and] was referred to Daily Bread in Berkeley. Its founder, Carolyn North, became her mentor. She modelled Food Runners after Daily Bread. "I copied (North's) program, because she believes, like I do, that we all belong in the same world," said Risley. "None of us are an entity standing alone, living alone, doing our own thing. We depend on each other as part of our existence. The ultimate goal for Food Runners is to make sure no business in San Francisco is throwing away nutritional, edible food," Risley said.
Note: Watch an inspiring two-minute video on this great movement.
This dream house is the love child of artist-builder Jay Shafer, who lovingly hand-crafted it. The stainless-steel kitchen, gleaming next to the natural wood interior, is outfitted with customized storage and built-ins. But in an era when bigger is taken as a synonym for better, calling Shafer's home a dream house might strike some as an oxymoron. Why? The entire house, including sleeping loft, measures only 96 square feet -- smaller than many people's bathrooms. Shafer ... began his love affair with diminutive dwellings about 10 years ago. "I was living in an average-sized apartment and I realized I just didn't need so much space," he said. After a friend asked him to build a house for him to live in, Shafer launched Tumbleweed Tiny House Co. in 2000. The friend went on to become the president of the Small House Society -- and thus was written one more episode of the small-is-beautiful movement. Shafer began building and designing little houses for people who wanted them as backyard retreats, second homes or primary residences. Over the years, he has built and sold 10 homes and dozens of house plans, which cost about $1,000. But the real story is that he's become a poster boy for simple living, with interviews or mentions in ... the New York Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times and, last February, even on "Oprah." "Our society's been based on excess for so long, it's still a somewhat novel idea to live simply," he said. His next dream is to create a little community of small houses, with a half-dozen or more connected by walking paths on a small piece of land.
Note: For lots more on the fascinating tiny house movement, click here. For an abundance of other inspiring major media articles, click here.
Highly-paid professionals like doctors and lawyers didn't make the cut when researchers set out to find the most satisfied workers. Clergy ranked tops in both job satisfaction and general happiness, according to the National Opinion Research Center [NORC] at the University of Chicago. Physical therapists and firefighters were second- and third-ranked in job satisfaction, with more than three-quarters reporting being "very satisfied." Other occupations in which more than 60 percent said they were very satisfied included teachers, painters and sculptors, psychologists and authors. "The most satisfying jobs are mostly professions, especially those involving caring for, teaching and protecting others and creative pursuits," said Tom W. Smith, director of NORC's General Social Survey. Intrinsic rewards are key, the study suggests. "They're doing work they're very proud of, helping people," Smith said. Clergy ranked by far the most satisfied and the most generally happy of 198 occupations. Eighty-seven percent of clergy said they were "very satisfied" with their work, compared with an average 47 percent for all workers. Others in helping professions describe their work as a calling. "I believe I was probably put on this earth to make someone's life a little easier," said Gina Kolk, [a] physical therapist. "I get rewarded every day by what I do." Occupations with the least satisfied and happy workers tended to be low-skill manual and service jobs. Roofers, waiters and laborers ranked at the bottom ... with as few as one in five reporting they were very satisfied. Bartenders, known for listening to other people's troubles, apparently need sympathetic ears: Only 26 percent said they were very satisfied.
Ryan Mickle's life was the stuff young bourgeois dreams are made of. Then a year ago ... Mickle began to take stock of his life. He was earning a lot of money but was giving very little of himself. So Mickle ditched his high-paying job to brainstorm a new venture with friend Rod Ebrahimi. The result was Dotherightthing.com, a San Francisco startup that allows users to rank companies based on their social impact on the world. Their site [allows] consumers to influence corporate behavior. The sentiment is summed up in Dotherightthing.com's T-shirt slogan: "It's cool to care." Mickle, 26, and Ebrahimi, 25, are among a growing number of entrepreneurs betting they can build ventures that deliver both financial and social returns. EBay founder Pierre Omidyar has dedicated much of his fortune to helping for-profits and nonprofits alike discover their power to do good. At www.freepledge.com, shoppers buy the same products from the same merchants for the same price, but a percentage is donated to the nonprofit of their choice. Darian Hickman, 28, is designing an online strategy game that turns the players into entrepreneurs who help bring prosperity to impoverished villages in underdeveloped countries. [He was] inspired by Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel prize-winning micro-finance pioneer. Premal Shah [is a] former PayPal executive who is president of online micro-lender Kiva.org. Brian Johnson, 32 ... said he felt uncomfortable with capitalism until he hit on the concept of "using economics as a force for good. How do we live our spiritual ideals and make money?" Now Johnson tries to have it both ways with Zaadz.com, which he describes as MySpace for people who want to change the world.
Note: We encourage you to take some time to explore some of these exciting new adventures which are transforming the face of business and building a brighter future for us all. For more on micro-finance, micro-lending, and how you can help end poverty without donating a penny, click here. And for the profile of website founder Fred Burks on Zaadz.com, click here.
The Persian poet Rumi was surrounded by news of terrorism. Mass murders from war -- what today would be called genocide and ethnic cleansing -- were a routine part of Rumi's 13th-century world. So, where's the bloodshed in Rumi's writing? Rumi, a man so advanced in Islamic training that he could issue fatwas, divorced himself from talk of revenge, retribution and eye-for-an-eye killings. Like Jesus, Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., Rumi insisted violence was an unsatisfying way of resolving issues. Sentiments like that have turned Rumi into one of America's best-selling poets -- someone whose thoughts on love and other matters are revered by hundreds of thousands of readers. Interest in the mystic from Persia (now Iran) -- in his all-inclusive message that the faithful of all religions have a common humanity -- has mushroomed in the past six years. Go to Borders, Barnes & Noble or any neighborhood bookstore, and you're likely to find many more Rumi titles than books by Robert Frost or Walt Whitman. So, who is Rumi? He was a mystic and a scholar. He was an adherent of religious Islam ... who, in the later part of his life, famously said, "I am not a Jew nor a Christian, not a Zoroastrian nor a Moslem." The love and longing that Rumi felt was everywhere, including his soul. "Keep in mind that the holy Quran states there is no force in religion," says Naini, a Rumi expert who has lectured on the poet at the United Nations. "Rumi wants to remind us that we are all children and the creation of God, regardless of religion, race, color, nationality, etc." In the current climate of war and warmongering ... Rumi's biggest gift to readers today may be his emphasis on the power of love and tolerance.
With humanity coming up fast on 2012, publishers are helping readers gear up and count down to this mysterious — some even call it apocalyptic — date. Since November, at least three new books on 2012 have arrived in mainstream bookstores. Journalist Lawrence Joseph forecasts widespread catastrophe in Apocalypse 2012: A Scientific Investigation Into Civilization's End. Spiritual healer Andrew Smith predicts a restoration of a "true balance between Divine Feminine and Masculine" in The Revolution of 2012. In 2012, Daniel Pinchbeck anticipates a "change in the nature of consciousness." Each arrives in the wake of the 2006 success of 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl, which has been selling thousands of copies a month since its release in May. The books also build on popular interest in the Maya. Authors disagree about what humankind should expect on Dec. 21, 2012, when the Maya's "Long Count" calendar marks the end of a 5,126-year era. Maya civilization, known for advanced writing, mathematics and astronomy, flourished for centuries in Mesoamerica, especially between A.D. 300 and 900. Its Long Count calendar ... tracks more than 5,000 years, then resets at year zero. Publishers seem to be courting readers who believe humanity is creating its own ecological disasters and desperately needs ancient indigenous wisdom. Part of the 2012 mystique stems from the stars. On the winter solstice in 2012, the sun will be aligned with the center of the Milky Way for the first time in about 26,000 years. This means that "whatever energy typically streams to Earth from the center of the Milky Way will indeed be disrupted on 12/21/12 at 11:11 p.m. Universal Time," Joseph writes.
Note: There are many misconceptions spreading about 2012. Some say the Mayan calendar ends in 2012, when in fact the Mayan calendar never ends. The "alautun," for example is a Mayan unit of time measure equal to over 60 million years. The claim that the sun will align with the center of the Milky way is 2012 is also a misconception. Calculations of this date are not exact, with one expert giving a date of 1998 plus or minus 18 years. Many seem to want something big to happen in 2012, when perhaps the most important time on which to focus on is this moment, right now.
Hal Taussig wears baggy jeans and fraying work shirts that Goodwill might reject. His shoes have been resoled three times. At age 81, he doesn't own a car. He performs errands and commutes to the office by bicycle. And he has given away millions. Given the fortune that Taussig has made through Untours, his unique travel business, and has given away through the Untours Foundation, you could call him the Un-millionaire. If he so chose, he could be living in a Main Line mansion and driving a Mercedes. But he considers money and what he calls "stuff," beyond what he needs to survive, a burden, an embarrassment. In many respects, he's a 21st-century Thoreau. "Let your capital be simplicity and contentment," the sage of Walden Pond wrote. "Those are my sentiments precisely," says Taussig, who has three children, five grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren. He directs the Untours Foundation, into which he pours all his profits - $5 million since 1992. The money is used to make low-interest loans to ventures and projects that help the needy and jobless - from a craft store in Hanoi to a home-health-care cooperative in Philadelphia. "I invest in entrepreneurial efforts to help poor people leverage themselves out of poverty." "In America, we worship success," he says. "It's a shoddy ethic that leads us to value who we are by what we are." The motto of the Untours Foundation is "a hand up, not a handout." It provides low-interest loans, here and abroad, to create jobs, build low-income housing, and support fair-trade products: goods such as coffee that are sold at a price that guarantees producers and workers a fair wage and decent livelihood.
Note: For an easy way you can use your investments to help families pull out of poverty, click here.
When other kids were doing homework and navigating the jangly uptake of adolescent hormones, [Derrick] Bedford was dealing pot in East Oakland.. It was the early '90s, when Oakland's crack entrepreneurs became folk heroes to kids on the street. For the next decade he was in and out of juvenile hall. He never went beyond seventh grade. He spent five and a half months in Santa Rita Jail in Dublin. "From 12 to 23, it seemed like I was just a magnet to the police." Today, Bedford is a role model -- an exemplar of reinvention and a life transformed. Arrest-free for 11 years, he's a husband, a father of two and owns his own home. He loves his career. Bedford is on the opposite side of the law today. A juvenile institutional officer, ... he works with kids under house arrest. "No matter what these kids are going through," he says, "I have some experience and some testimony to help them through their situation." Bedford fell naturally into the work: He spoke the same language, knew the scams and could recognize the lies because he'd told them all. He brought credibility, and found that he loved the work and thrived on it. He won the Spirit of Youth Award, given by the Coalition for Juvenile Justice in Washington, D.C. "When I look back at my life," Bedford says, "there is definitely a lot of bad that I have done ... but I think it was all priming me to deal with the war we have going on with young African American men." Some days, he says, when he's walking through juvenile hall, "I'm just daydreaming. To grow up and be employed by the same county where I once was an offender ... is just unreal."
Ninety-seven-year-old Irena Sendler, just four foot eleven, saved twenty-five hundred children from Nazi death camps. Few knew. Mrs. Sendler seldom spoke of what she did. Considering all the remarkable stories from the Holocaust that have surfaced over the years, it's hard to believe this one lay mostly unnoticed for sixty years, until four high school girls from Uniontown, Kansas, uncovered it. Thanks to those teenagers, Mrs. Sendler has just been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. That tiny Catholic nurse not only saved all those children, she managed to sneak a Jewish man out of the Warsaw Ghetto. Right past the Nazi guards. She later married him and had two children of her own. Television is at its best when it shows the incredible things of which we are capable. People who see things that need to be done and do them without regrets or apologies; without sending out a press release. I like to reflect on such unassuming people like ... Irena Sendler. Perhaps they are put in a reporter's path to remind us never to get so caught up in the "Big Stories" that we overlook everyday people working in the woods. Their lives mattered and did make a difference.
Note: For an MSN video clip depicting the inspiring story of this woman and the teenagers who rediscovered her, click here. For the wonderful website dedicated to her, click here.
The Plasma Converter ... can consume nearly any type of waste—from dirty diapers to chemical weapons—by annihilating toxic materials in a process ... called plasma gasification. A 650-volt current passing between two electrodes rips electrons from the air, converting the gas into plasma. The plasma arc is so powerful, it disintegrates trash into its constituent elements by tearing apart molecular bonds. The system is capable of breaking down pretty much anything except nuclear waste. The only by-products are an obsidian-like glass [and] a mixture of primarily hydrogen and carbon monoxide that can be converted into a variety of marketable fuels, including ethanol, natural gas and hydrogen. Perhaps the most amazing part of the process is that it’s self-sustaining. Once the cycle is under way, the 2,200°F syngas is fed into a cooling system, generating steam that drives turbines to produce electricity. About two thirds of the power is siphoned off to run the converter; the rest can be used on-site for heating or electricity, or sold back to the utility grid. Even a blackout would not stop the operation of the facility. New York City is already paying an astronomical $90 a ton to get rid of its trash. According to Startech, a few 2,000-ton-per-day plasma-gasification plants could do it for $36. Sell the syngas and surplus electricity, and you’d actually net $15 a ton. But the decision-making bureaucracy can be slow, and it is hamstrung by the politically well-connected waste-disposal industry. Startech isn’t the only company using plasma to turn waste into a source of clean energy. A handful of start-ups—Geoplasma, Recovered Energy, PyroGenesis, EnviroArc and Plasco Energy, among others—have entered the market in the past decade.
Note: Why hasn't this amazing, proven machine and technology made front page headlines? Read the exciting article at the link above to find how it is already being used. For why you don't know about it, read this excellent article on how such inventions are suppressed.
Bring to your mind a past occasion of inner joy and happiness," writes Matthieu Ricard in his new book Happiness: A Guide To Developing Life's Most Important Skill. "Recall how you felt. Consider the lasting effect this experience has had on your mind, and how it still nourishes a sense of fulfilment." Ricard, French translator and right-hand man for the Dalai Lama, has been the subject of intensive clinical tests at the University of Wisconsin, as a result of which he is frequently described as the happiest man in the world. As a young man, Matthieu Ricard, 60, was regarded as one of the most promising biologists of his generation. He completed a starred PhD at the Institut Pasteur under the supervision of Nobel prize-winner François Jacob, but abandoned his scientific career in 1972, when he moved to Darjeeling. There, he devoted himself to studying under ... a Tibetan master. He has been a monk, and celibate, since he was 30. Developing happiness, Ricard argues, is a skill. Most people exist like beggars, "unaware of the treasure buried beneath their shack". We can develop our potential as if "polishing a nugget" and eventually ... achieve happiness. Ricard's book exudes inspiration and intelligence, qualities embodied in its author. Happiness ... contains simple exercises designed to help the reader achieve the same sort of composure that radiates from Ricard himself. "Ultimately, it's how your mind relates to the world that determines whether you're miserable or not. You have to ask yourself: is my happiness dependent on other people?"
Note: For a highly inspiring 12-minute video by an amazing gentleman with a similar message, click here.
Within five years, solar power will be cheap enough to compete with carbon-generated electricity. In a decade, the cost may have fallen so dramatically that solar cells could undercut oil, gas, coal and nuclear power by up to half. Anil Sethi, the chief executive of the Swiss start-up company Flisom, says he looks forward to the day - not so far off - when entire cities in America and Europe generate their heating, lighting and air-conditioning needs from solar films on buildings with enough left over to feed a surplus back into the grid. The secret? A piece of dark polymer foil, as thin a sheet of paper. It is so light it can be stuck to the sides of buildings. It can be mass-produced in cheap rolls like packaging - in any colour. The "tipping point" will arrive when the capital cost of solar power falls below $1 (51p) per watt, roughly the cost of carbon power. The best options today vary from $3 to $4 per watt - down from $100 in the late 1970s. Mr Sethi believes his product will cut the cost to 80 cents per watt within five years, and 50 cents in a decade. "We don't need subsidies, we just need governments to get out of the way and do no harm," he said. Solar use [has] increased dramatically in Japan and above all Germany, where Berlin's green energy law passed in 2004 forces the grid to buy surplus electricity from households at a fat premium. The tipping point in Germany and Japan came once households [understood] that they could undercut their unloved utilities. Credit Lyonnais believes the rest of the world will soon join the stampede. Needless to say, electricity utilities are watching the solar revolution with horror.
Note: Why is this inspiring, important news getting so little press coverage? And why not more solar subsidies? For a possible answer, click here. And for an amazing new energy source not yet reported in the major media which could make even solar energy obsolete, click here.
Important Note: Explore our full index to key excerpts of revealing major media news articles on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.